The Bacterionomicon

Have you ever imagined the battles that are conducted in your body between infectious bacteria and antibiotics? If so did you imagine the antibiotics as fantasy heroes and the bacteria as the monsters they slay in battle? Well apparently these guys did and they made a game out called Healing Blade for the rest of us to enjoy. Healing Blade is sold out and instead of doing a reprint Nerdcore Medical has decided to do a complete redesign with the help of Kickstarter backers.

The reprint is called Healing Blade: Defenders of Soma and in it two players will battle it out in the land of Soma. One player will take on the role of antibiotics as The Apothecary Healers, a group of sorcerers and warriors named after antibiotics and the way they fight reflects actual antibiotic recommendations from real world medical guides. Their opponent will play The Lords of Pestilence a diverse group of evil monsters like dragons and zombies that are named after real world bacteria and infections and have the same characteristics as their real world counterparts. During the game the Pestilence player will attempt to kill 3 of the 5 villagers while the Apothecary player tries to defend the villagers until the end of the plague.

The game was envisioned by Dr. Arun Matthews and designed by Brandon Patton it has some very cool looking artwork by Raul Gonzalez who has also illustrated a The Bacterionomicon an artbook with the Apothecary Healers and Lords of Pestilence. It comes with 80 different characters:

46 different infectious bacteria

34 different antibiotics.

This is certainly a unique Kickstarter but definitely worth checking out. The artwork is great and the game itself is based on real science, a rarity in the non-educational game world and looks like a solid game. There are some interesting stretch goals like a pill bottle to hold the game pieces, and trying to pronounce the names of the characters is almost a game in itself. There is also a PnP pledge level for those that like to craft. So head over to the Kickstarter project for Healing Blade: Defenders of Soma today.